I was chatting (complaining!) to a friend today about my horrible, disgustingly, hair house, and she said "Sounds like a blog entry!" So, here goes:I hate vacuuming. It's probably my very least favorite household cleaning chore. Don't get me wrong, there isn't really cleaning chore that I enjoy, but vacuuming is at the top of my list of dislikes. (Second only to scrubbing the tub.) That being said, I'm sure you can imagine what a nightmare my dogs shedding cycle is to me. Over the past three and a half weeks, I have vacuumed my house Every. Single. Day. at least once, sometimes twice! Actually, that's a lie. My husband took pity on me last weekend (In all honesty, I think he was scared as he watched me crabbily yanked the vacuum out of it's hiding spot and glare at it with my best stink eye), and he cleaned the house on Saturday and Sunday.Between vacuuming, I feel like I'm constantly sweeping, and even then, there is hair EVERYWHERE! For those of you who know me, my standard of "clean" when it comes to my house isn't super high. Mostly not disgusting is usually good enough for me! This shedding cycle though, has come conveniently at the same time as Growly Bear starting to be mobile all over my hair floors. And even though my hubby says that I say this every year, I really mean it this time when I say this is the WORST shedding year EVER for our dogs! Plus, a fun fact that no one seemed to mention to me, is that when weaning from breastfeeding, your body goes through another crazy hormonal shift, similar to the one that happens after you give birth, and it causes you to loose insane amounts of hair! Like handfuls! Seriously! There's your gross out fact for the day. You're welcome! So not only are my big black hair dogs shedding, so am I! Poor little Growly Bear seems to act like a human Swifer and attracts every bit of hair and dust in a 10 foot radius! After playing for 20 minutes on the floor, she looks like an adorable, happy, little fuzzy caterpillar. Every morning I wake up to this:

I wish this was an exaggeration... It's not! My hallway is the home to a Dust Doggy colony every single morning!

And so every morning after my shower and Growly Bear's breakfast, she rocks out in her Jumparoo to some good tunes, while I do a mad race through the house with the vacuum.

Koda Bear keeping an eye on Growly Bear for me. He's a pretty good babysitter <3

Momma Mea.... the main contribute to this haven of hair!

It's a good thing I love these two rotters so much, or else I just don't know... :)

I've informed my hubby, that unless he's going to take over 100% of the daily household chores and cleaning, our next pet is going to be a hairless cat like Mr. Bigglesworth on Austin Powers. (Not really. Those creepy things scare the poop outta me!)Luckily the shedding seems to be slowing down (for both me and the dogs!). And it's warmer outside, which means more sunbathing on the deck for these two big black beauties. So hopefully my house will go back to being just "sorta hairy" instead of "inhabitabley hairy".Off to sweep one last time before bed!Love and Hugs

I have what should be a really cute, cozy dinning room. My dad built it for us when we bought our place, and I love it! It's got a massive picture window that shows off our beautiful view, and it's always the warmest room in the house because it's where the wood stove is. (For those of you that know me, I'm ALWAYS cold, this this is a huge perk!) It gets sun all day long, so it's always bright and cheery. All in all, it should be the perfect room!Unfortunately, it's also the entrance to our house. This means that the table turns into the catch all for everything that comes in, or needs to go out, of the house. The chairs act as coat hangers, because despite the fact that we have 4 hooks to hang our coats on, that's not enough. I'm not exactly sure why, but between myself and my husband, we own about 42 jackets, and for some reason, we both find it necessary to have them ALL hanging out where they can be easily accessed rather then moving them to a closet somewhere else in the house. There are always shoes strewn about because, well, I have a "thing" for shoes, and the same can be said for them as about the jackets...Also, we have 2 big black dogs which track muddy prints in continuously. And, my husband is a machine operator who works in a gravel pit and finds it necessary to bring his "work" him with him in the form of sand, dirt, pebbles, concrete, grease and dust. AND, this is a big one, like I mentioned earlier, it's where our wood stove is! Anyone who has wood heat knows that while it's the coziest, nicest heat you'll ever experience, it's filthy and disgusting!So, mostly, I just don't clean it. Yeah, I know! It should be all the more reason to clean it frequently, but it's such a thankless task that it just makes me crabby!It was particularly disgusting the weekend, and I decided that I was too lazy to do it and was going to hire someone to come in and wash the walls and do a big cleaning. Then, I remembers that I'm a stay at home mom, and not the Queen of Sheba, and I should get off my butt and do something about it.So, it started like this:

Unfortunately (or luckily!) you can't see the DUST on everything! But it gives you and idea of what it usually looks like...

Whilst in the midst of doing my clean, we went shopping, and I indulged in a cleaning tool that I've seen but have been to cheap to buy. I bought one of those Swifer Dusters. Oh. My. Gosh. Best $13 I've ever spent! (And yes, I know that's crazy expensive compared to the rest of the wold, but lets not forget that I live in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and everything is twice as expensive here and it is elsewhere!). It's seriously my new favorite thing! I Swifered the crap outta that room! The trim and moldings, the doors, curtain rods, my picture display, even my Peace Lilly's dusty leaves got Swifered! That thing is AMA-ZA-AING! If my house is burning down and I only can grab a couple things, that's going to be one of this things I take with me!This is what it picked up!

Eeeew!

I even shook it like they do in the commercial because I didn't believe that it could actually hang on to everything it picked up, but it did! And the end result was....

Ta-Da! See it sparkle!

Unfortunately, it's already back looking more like the 1st picture then the 2nd, but it's less dusty! So, all in all, not a complete fail I suppose!Until my next cleaning mission,Love and Hugs

So, I was politely reminded by my Auntie today that it's been 1 week and 1 days since I last blogged. I'm taking the hint and sitting down with my laptop to make an entry.Sorry to neglect you all, but we've been sicky in our house over the last week. With snotty noses to tend to, and nursing strikes to deal with, and everyone feeling yucky in general, there just hasn't been a lot of time to blog! Growly Bear work up last week with a horrible cough that freaked me out so much, we took her to see the Dr. The very nice man we saw was extremely sweet, and didn't for a second make me feel like an overreacting new mother. He put my mind at ease by telling me she was fine, and it was just a nasty cold, but be sure to bring her back in if it got worse, of if I was still worried in a couple of days.The next day my hubby woke up with the crud, and me the day after that. We've been a household of snotty, coughing, grossness. Thank goodness we've been blessed with the worlds happiest sick baby! Despite all her coughing, and sneezing, and stuffed up little nose, she's been her happy, giggly, playful self. Here's a picture to prove it:

My sweet little sickie <3

I on the other hand, was feeling sorry for myself that I had to go down town on Saturday to do some much needed running around. What I really wanted to do was stay in bed all day with Growly Bear and watch "Jake and the Never Land Pirates" and "Micky's Playhouse" and "In the Night Garden".... well actually, not that last one, it scares the cr*p outta me, but for some reason, Growly Bear loves it! So, anyway, we went to my moms house after our running around, I made her take care of me while Growly Bear had a little nap beside me. My mom did a great job, and after a couple hours, I felt better and we went home. I set Growly Bear up in her Jumparoo, and sat down on the couch with a glass of water to be lazy and play on FaceBook for a while. As I reached for my laptop, which was sitting on the coffee table beside the glass of water, I knocked the tall water glass over, and spilled it all over me, the rug at my feet, and it splashed all under the cough. So much for a relaxing moment!I grabbed a towel, moved the coffee table out of the way, and got down on the floor to dry it up. I looked under the couch to make sure I got all the water, and wow! You'll never guess what I found.... Another Dust Doggie colony, (which is funny because I ALWAYS stick the wand of the vacuum under there at least once a week... Those things are sneaky!) as well as an assortment of "goodies"Warning, contents may shock you:

The final tally was as follows:1. Red Pen2. Missing sewing scissors (which have been missing for ages, and I was quite PO'ed seeing as they retail at about $40!)3. Chocolate of all kinds - Aero Bar, Smarties, a Kinder Egg, Chocolate Chips, a Chocolate from our Advent Calendars..... etc4. A toy cell phone5. A Sucky6. An assortment of garbage, including an empty candy container7. Hubby's missing socks8. Dust Doggy colony, which I decided to spare you from and sucked up before I took this photo.I know what you're wondering, and NO I didn't eat that chocolate bar (yet). I threw almost all of that chocolate away....One good thing that came out of this all, other then the fact that it forced me to clean under my disgusting cough, was that I now know that answer to my husbands question when he asks me where all his socks are. "Under the couch!" The same answer also seems appropriate for when he asked me if we have anything in the house to snack on! Ew....Off to bed now my friends!Love and Hugs

I love my washing machine. I'm thankful for it every day. It's not a fancy front load (although I dream about having one of those one day!). It's very standard, with no extra features or bells and whistles, but I love it. I love it alllmost as much as my dishwasher, but not quite. Pretty much every time I'm swapping over the second load of laundry of the morning, and putting on the third (which is pretty frequently!) I thank my lucky starts I don't have to go beat our socks and underwear on a rock down by the river to get them clean!This morning was like any other. I hopped out of the shower, gathered up the jeans and dark shirts and socks from the past couple days, loaded up the washing machine, and turned it on to fill with water while I finished putting my make-up on. I headed into our bedroom to check on Growly Bear, and noticed that I didn't hear the washer filling any more, but I also didn't hear it agitating. I figured my mushy mommy brain forgot to close the lid, so I went to close it. Unfortunately, I discovered that it already was closed! But nothing was happening! I played with the setting, trying every different combo I could think of, and nadda! A word suddenly came to mind.... "conniption". I remember my dad using that term when I was a kid. If I was being rotten and having a freak out, he'd tell me not to have a conniption. Or he'd warn me to clean up after myself of else my mom would have a conniption. I never really though much about the word, and in all honestly, I always kinda wondered if it was even a REAL word (my dad has come pretty crazy made up words!) I have discovered (since googling it to get the correct spelling) that it IS indeed a word, and I was about to have one!I'm standing there looking at a washing machine that was full of about 500lbs of soapy water, and some of my favorite clothes, and it was dead! I told my self to remain calm, and did the only thing I could think to do. I called my husband on his cell and freaked! He politely reminded me that he was at work, and he'd take a look when he got home. I squawked at him that I NEEDED to do laundry (apparently, in my dramatic mindset, I'd forgotten the fact that we all have enough clothes, socks and underwear to get us through about 3 weeks). So, he started talking about "belts" and "starter switches" and something about the motor, and he started asking me all these questions. I dunno... I stopped listening and agreed that him looking at it after he got off of work was a good idea.So, when he got home, he pulled it out to take a look. Well, Oh. My. God. I now know what the most disgusting place in my entire house is! Dog hair. Laundry soap. Long lost socks. Missing change. And other stuff that I'm sure I don't even want to know what it was! I considered taking a photo to share with you all, but decided against it. I like you all too much to subject you to that horror. It was all I could do to turn my back and walk away from the filth while my poor husband was trying to figure out the problem. Every part of my soul wanted to shove him aside and deal with it right then! I made him PROMISE not to push the washing machine back in place until I could get back there and clean it. He has a kinda "Outta site. Outta mind" mentality when it comes to housework. I knew the site of that Dust Doggies colony would haunt me if I knew it was under there though!But, I did leave him alone. And after about 20 minutes of curse words and tools clanking, he came out and told me that it was that starter thing that he thought it was right from the start. He's got a really amazing mind when it comes to mechanics of any kind, and he likes to figure out how things work. He started explaining to me how the starter had a thing that pushed down on another thing and released something else, and that allowed the motor to start, and... I have no idea what else. I answered with "Oh wow. Cool!" and that seemed to make him happy, so I suppose it was the appropriate response?Anyway, with a little tweaking and some duct-tape, he had me up and running again in no time! And, he even vaccumed the Dust Doggie colony up for me! He earned some big "Good Husband" brownie points, and I managed to fit two loads of laundry in before Growly Bear went to bed! All those factors, combined with the fact that he probably saved us a minimum of $700, even if just temporarily, makes it a good day in my books.I'm off to bed now my faithful readers,Love and Hugs

Waking up to this view was an awesome way to start the day! Unfortunately though, the sun came out later. Yeah, I know what you're thinking. But when you live in a house with 2.5 animals, and 1.5 dirty humans, it's unfortunate when the sun comes out so brightly that it shows the filth.Don't get me wrong, I love the sunshine! But I love regular sunshine. Not this super, brighter then normal, blinding sunshine that reflects off the crisp white snow and reveals EVERYTHING that's dirty in my entire house! Before this crazy uber sunshine came out today, I was at least giving the illusion that my house was kinda clean! That illusion was completely lost by mid morning today though!I thought you all might enjoy a photo or two of what I'm talking about:

That, my friends, is wood stove coated cob-web. Nice eh? And during a regularly bright day, totally not even noticeable!

Niiiiice! By the way, where did that even come from? I totally dusted that last weekend when I took down the Christmas tree (see earlier blog entry)

And for those of you wondering what a "dust-doggie" really is (again, see Christmas tree removal post from last week), wonder no more! Here one is in all it's disgusting glory. You're welcome!

I think that the very best part of today though, was the fact that I had so many people stop by our disgusting house. I've been selling some un-needed items on a Buy and Sell website lately, and naturally, everyone who bought something over the past week stopped by today, during this revealing sunshine episode, to pick up their items.It really would have been a good day to clean all this grossness while it could be seen, but instead, I quickly vacuumed the completely obvious, recited the following poem to myself, and went and played with my beautiful baby girl who was patiently waiting for her mommy:

_Mother, oh Mother, come shake out your cloth, Empty the dustpan, poison the moth, Hang out the washing and butter the bread, Sew on a button and make up a bed. Where is the mother whose house is so shocking? She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking. Oh, I’ve grown shiftless as Little Boy Blue (Lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo). Dishes are waiting and bills are past due (Pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo). The shopping’s not done and there’s nothing for stew And out in the yard there’s a hullabaloo But I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo. Look! Aren’t her eyes the most wonderful hue? (Lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).

Author

_

_I'm
an unorganized, wanna be neat freak. I love my husband and my baby
girl, jeans with the "comfort" waistband, online shopping, cheesy 80's
tunes and anything chocolate. On a good day I'm kinda awesome. On a bad
day, not so much.